For Immediate Release: April 17, 2025
Contact:
Lasamee Kettavong, media@napawf.org
Catherine Lozadae, media@latinainstitute.org
Kindeya Chiaro, inourownvoice@berlinrosen.com
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Leaders from Intersections of Our Lives (Intersections)—a reproductive justice collaborative of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF), In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda (In Our Own Voice), and the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice (Latina Institute)—call for the Senate to vote against the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act.
The SAVE Act would require all U.S. citizens to present documentary proof of citizenship when registering to vote or updating voter registration information. It compounds existing state-enacted voter suppression laws, such as limits on mail-in ballots, removal of ballot drop boxes, and reductions in early voting opportunities. The SAVE Act will make it even more difficult for people to register to vote, resulting in a new method of voter suppression, and would upend longstanding, secure, and popular methods of voter registration and exclude tens of millions of eligible American citizens from voting.
The SAVE Act would disproportionately impact AANHPI women, gender-expansive people, and communities of color. According to the Pew Research Center, 84 percent of women who marry change their surname, meaning as many as 69 million American women would need additional documentation to be able to register to vote. 146 million Americans do not have a valid passport and people of color and young people are even less likely to have these secondary forms of ID; therefore the SAVE Act will disproportionately impact our communities. The SAVE Act fails to clarify whether change-of-name paperwork, marriage certificates, or gender marker updates would be acceptable documentation. For many citizens, these documents are neither updated nor accessible.
Sung Yeon Choimorrow, Executive Director of National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, Dr. Regina Davis Moss, President and CEO of In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda, and Lupe M. Rodriguez, Executive Director of National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice, and —the leaders of Intersections of Our Lives–issued the following statement:
“The SAVE Act convolutes the voter registration process for eligible voters. This is yet another strategy to infringe upon the already-threatened rights of our communities–those who have historically been marginalized, made invisible, and underrepresented. Women of color want to see their experiences, priorities, and values–the right to healthy bodies, families and communities–reflected in the policy discussions of the people they have elected to represent them. Obstructing our right to vote hinders our ability to participate in the democratic process and elect leaders who will protect reproductive freedoms, ultimately impeding our power to make decisions about our bodies, our families, and our futures.
“The SAVE Act would set us back by further restricting access to the ballot box and limiting our ability to shape the policies that impact our lives. Intersections of Our Lives demands that no additional barriers be placed in the way of women and gender expansive people’s health, dignity, and autonomy. We oppose the SAVE Act and what it represents: an obstruction to reproductive justice and political participation for our communities.”
Additional information is available in the recently published fact sheet: The SAVE Act: A Threat to Reproductive Justice and Political Participation for AANHPI Communities
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Intersections of Our Lives is a collaboration of In Our Own Voice: National Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda (In Our Own Voice), the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF), and the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice (Latina Institute), three women of color-led national Reproductive Justice organizations with both a federal and statewide presence. For more information about Intersections of Our Lives visit: IntersectionsofOurLives.org.
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